"America has two great dominant strands of political thought - conservatism,
which, at its very best, draws lines that should not be crossed;
and progressivism, which, at its very best, breaks down barriers that
should never have been erected."
-- Bill Clinton, Dedication of the Clinton Presidential Library, November 2004

Sunday, January 18, 2004

It wasn't an official endorsement, but it's hard to see whether there's any difference in the distinction! Carter clearly sees in Dean a fellow traveler:

During Sunday school, Dean sat with Rosalynn Carter at the far end of a pew toward the front. Former President Carter opened the lesson by asking visitors to say which state they were from and when Dean called out Vermont, laughter arose from the packed congregation. Carter introduced Dean and asked him to stand for applause.

Carter's lesson was on integrity and he taught from the book of Job, which Dean recently said was his favorite book of the Bible. Carter told reporters that Job's struggles with those who falsely accused him of being a sinner reminded him of the attacks he suffered during his first presidential campaign.

"After I won in Iowa, I realized what Job was talking about," Carter said. "It seemed like everybody descended on me with all kinds of abuse and accusations, and I felt like I was innocent."

Dean As Matt notes, Dean returned the praise, making explicit mention of Carter's legacy of explicitly linking human rights with foreign policy. In so doing, Carter perfected Neo-Wilsonianism, the commitment to encouraging democratic, free nations. The difference between this and Neo Conservatism is that the latter's commitment to actual democracy falls short when the People of said nation refuse to fall into line with American interests.

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About Nation-Building

Nation-Building was founded by Aziz Poonawalla in August 2002 under the name Dean Nation. Dean Nation was the very
first weblog devoted to a presidential candidate, Howard Dean, and became the vanguard of the Dean netroot phenomenon, raising
over $40,000 for the Dean campaign, pioneering the use of Meetup, and enjoying the attention of the campaign itself, with Joe Trippi
a regular reader (and sometime commentor). Howard Dean himself even left a comment once. Dean Nation was a group weblog effort and counts
among its alumni many of the progressive blogsphere's leading talent including Jerome Armstrong, Matthew Yglesias, and Ezra Klein. After
the election in 2004, the blog refocused onto the theme of "purple politics",
formally changing its name to Nation-Building in June 2006.
The primary focus of the blog is on articulating
purple-state policy at home and
pragmatic liberal interventionism abroad.